Five Key Wine Components and How to Detect Them

A lesson on the basic words and phrases you need to know about wine

Alcohol
Isolated, alcohol smells sweet. Give the wine a good swirl for a few seconds and pop your nose in the glass. If you actually smell something sweet that reminds you of rubbing alcohol or feel what seems like a heat-driven tickle in your nose, the alcohol is too high for the style of the wine – it’s not balanced. You’re not supposed to notice the alcohol, it’s just supposed to be there.

The mouth-feel: Do you notice that your mouth feels warmer than it did before you sipped the wine? That's the alcohol talking and in a very pleasant way. If it's quite warm, or almost hot, the alcohol content is on the high side. If you actually taste the alcohol or feel like a fire-breathing dragon, it’s too high, not balanced. It seems to be most noticeable in the back of your throat. The alcohol also adds an oily, viscous sensation.

Why do you care? Alcohol gives the wine a great deal of its body or “heft.” A wine that’s meant to be robust in style feels thin and unsatisfying on the palate if the alcohol is too low. Alcohol is yet another preservative, which explains why Port-style wine can live so long in the bottle and actually keeps better than table wine once it’s opened (sugar also helps in that regard).

The source: The sugar in the grapes at harvest. In many parts of the world adding sugar is permitted. It’s called Chaptalization. During the fermentation the sugar is converted to alcohol.

Descriptions: Warm, hot, weighty, sweet

Sugar
Well, this one’s easy – we all know sweetness, right? And that “dry” is the opposite of sweet? Sweetness also has a pleasant, slippery sort of mouth-feel.

Since sugar is so familiar, this is a good time to talk about perception vs. reality. The level of acidity can really play games with your head in gauging sweetness. It makes the wine seem less sweet than it is. Sparkling wines called "brut," for instance, are considered dry, but they may actually have as much as 1.5 percent sugar (our threshold for noticing sweetness in wine is most often at about .5 percent). They taste dry because they are so high in acid.

Try making some overly-tart lemonade and give it a taste. Then add a little sugar. Keep tasting and adding sugar until you reach a pleasant balance. Notice how the sugar has softened and rounded out the acid sensation? The acid level hasn’t changed, but your perception of it has.

Fruity flavors can also trick your palate into detecting sugar that isn’t actually there. The phenomenon is called auto-association.

If dry is .5 percent or less, off-dry can be up to about 4 percent sugar, medium sweet up to 10 percent sugar and anything over that is very sweet, indeed. But our perception? That’s another matter.

Why do you care? Who doesn’t love something a little sweet from time to time? Plus, besides its rounding effect on overly tart wine, a bit of sugar can cover a lot of sins in the production of inexpensive wine, and it’s another of Mother Nature’s natural preservatives.

The source: The grapes. In most cases the sugar in wine is residual, unfermented sugar because the fermentation was stopped before the yeast converted all of the sugar to alcohol. In some cases, the winemaker ferments to dryness and adds back grape juice or grape-juice concentrate to sweeten the wine.

When the wine is balanced, the flavors, body and the relative level of the components interact harmoniously. Since alcohol gives wine body, a glass of red Bordeaux from a poor vintage that’s only 10.5 percent alcohol may feel thin and unsatisfying on the palate. Conversely, a Napa Cab from a hot vintage better have plenty of flavor and body to stand up to 15 percent alcohol. Otherwise, you will have spent a lot of money on something that makes you feel like a fire-breathing dragon.

The source: Mainly the alcohol and grape extracts (red); barrel-aging can increase the body due to evaporation.

I want to echo what's been said - an excellent article. If there's anything I'd like to have seen more of, it would be an elaboration of smell. I realize that you were talking about five major taste components, but in terms of the experience, the smell/nose/bouquet/whatever of a wine is, or can be, incredible. My first "wow" moment with wine was a 2001 Rioja that provided a hit of tobacco and saddle leather that I still remember. How can wine do that?

When I taste unknown wines for the first time I focus on the alcohol content, tannin levels, acidity and residual lingering taste and more on how it stays on the palate. the bouquet is of less important for me (poor smell ability) but after reading this post it is an important step in the enjoyment process. Get more tips on wines from le Marche by visiting this useful blog: vinomarche@blogspot.com

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to make these lovely comments! You've made my day! TomG, yours is a really great question that's hard to answer since there are so few absolutes in wine. But - I think you've given me the inspiration for my next post! Thanks! Nancy

This was a very interesting article. I appreciate the section on acidity and tannins and oxidation, leading to eventual softening. My wife and I lived in West Germany and Southern Italy for quite a long time, and we are often amazed at what we call "the big red California thing." A very high percentage of the CA cabs, in particular, just seem so uniform and less distinct to us, like there is a mouth feel that everyone is striving for. We have encountered it in some French reds and in the Cusomano family Noa and some 100% cab sauv from Sicily -- and we like that smooth velvet -- but it just seems that the red cab blends we drink now that we have moved back to the US are almost standardized. I think, now, that it must be because of that combo of high alcohol and the tannins from grape sources and the newer oak. We were beginning to assume that Michel Rolland had somehow taken over the entire state of California and was micro-oxygenating everything.

Well done I always find it hard in the tasting room to have the time to explain all the points you put in this report. The new taster wants to know which wine is best? Hard to answer I feel the best wine is the one you love to work with the food you intend to serve We all benefit from listening. Often one of my servers seems to jump the gun and start talking about the wine before the taster has really had a chance to take it all in. The tasting room can be a good place to learn about wine and tasting. Never be afraid to ask questions.

I agree, Geneventiv. I used to do an hour-long class to go over these things. No way you could get it done in a tasting bar situation. Looks like we have similar backgrounds - I've spent a whole lotta time in tasting rooms. I wish people would trust their palates to tell them which wine is best. Thanks for the comment! n

I agree, Geneventiv. I used to do an hour-long class to go over these things. No way you could get it done in a tasting bar situation. Looks like we have similar backgrounds - I've spent a whole lotta time in tasting rooms. I wish people would trust their palates to tell them which wine is best. Thanks for the comment! n

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to make these lovely comments! You've made my day! TomG, yours is a really great question that's hard to answer since there are so few absolutes in wine. But - I think you've given me the inspiration for my next post! Thanks! Nancy